Prospect keeps hockey dream alive following eye injury
Eskimos starting quarterback won’t risk injury by playing against Blue Bombers
Two series. Two touchdowns. He’s ready.
No sense taking reps for the sake of taking reps and risking injury while accomplishing virtually nothing, so Edmonton Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly’s entire pre-season will consist of six throws — all of which have already been made.
Reilly played less than a quarter Saturday against Saskatchewan and won’t play at all Friday in Winnipeg before the season opens for real on June 14. That’s not a lot of action, but head coach Jason Maas doesn’t think he needs any game time against the Bombers to be ready for opening night.
“Everyone knows how important Mike Reilly is to us,” said Maas, who employed a similar tact last year. “He gets a ton of reps in practice against our defence. He’s in mid-season form.”
And it’s not like he has to try to learn the playbook before opening night.
“He understands how to operate our offence,” said Maas. “This is the fifth year he’s been in this type of offence. He’s very comfortable. I can see just from the two series he had that he’s seeing the field well, he’s throwing it well. He took a hit, he’s fine.
“He’s big, he’s strong, so to send him out there for a second game to get a few more reps (isn’t necessary). He’s going to be ready to play that first game. I know that.”
Reilly understands the thought process behind shelving him for 90 per cent of the pre-season and says he’ll be ready for June 14 no matter what, but admits that when you haven’t played a game since last year’s playoffs, it’s no fun watching from the sidelines.
“You always want to be out there,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s pre-season, regular season or post-season, I’d love to be out there playing the entire game.
“I like playing a lot more than I like standing around. I was a lot more sore after the game from the last three quarters than I was from the first quarter. Standing there your knees and ankles get tired.”
But lining up against training camp defences playing vanilla schemes doesn’t really do much for a veteran quarterback. From that perspective, what he’s doing at practice is more than enough to get him sharpened up.
“But defences are usually pretty basic in the pre-season, so there isn’t anything I’m going to see that I haven’t seen before.
“I remember being at a point in my career when I needed to get in to show that I could make a team. That was exciting. Pre-season is exciting now for different reasons. It’s to see how guys are going to work together and see what kind of talent we have up and coming.”
Pre-season is exciting now for different reasons. It’s to see how guys are going to work together and see what kind of talent we have up and coming.
The Eskimos have three quarterbacks — Danny O’Brien, Zach Kline and Eli Jenkins — competing for the third-string position behind Reilly and Kevin Glenn and need the game time to make informed decisions on that front.
That’s another reason to let Reilly sit this one out.
“We had to get our starting group out there because every year your team is different,” he said. “So that first quarter (against Saskatchewan) was a new team for us coming out on the field as Eskimos and playing together.
“I was glad with how we started out, but now it’s about evaluating the depth guys and figure out who is going to make this football team.
“It’s more about (the Eskimos) being ready for the regular season. So you have to see who your depth guys are and you have to make sure that your starting guys are healthy.”
But Reilly also likes to make sure that his time spent on the sidelines isn’t wasted, so it’s up to him to try and use it productively. That means watching the game from a coach’s point of view.
“It does give you a different perspective. You get to watch from the sideline and try to help the guys coming off the field with some adjustments,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing if you use it properly. I don’t want to stand there on the sideline and not get anything out of it. I try and see it from coach Maas’s perspective and try to get better from it.”